Harley bowed again. A faint smile flitted for a moment to his lip, but, vanishing, gave way to a mournful, absent expression of countenance, as he scanned the handsome features before him, and, perhaps, masculine and bold though they were, still discovered something of a family likeness to one whose beauty had once been his ideal of female loveliness; for suddenly he stretched forth his hand, and said, with more than his usual cordial sweetness, “Business or not business, let us speak to each other as friends,—for the sake of a name that takes me back to Lansmere, to my youth. I listen to you with interest.”
Richard Avenel, much surprised by this unexpected kindliness, and touched, he knew not why, by the soft and melancholy tone of Harley’s voice, warmly pressed the hand held out to him; and seized with a rare fit of shyness, coloured and coughed and hemmed and looked first down, then aside, before he could find the words which were generally ready enough at his command.
“You are very good, Lord L’Estrange; nothing can be handsomer. I feel it here, my Lord,” striking his buff waistcoat,—“I do, ‘pon my honour. But not to waste your time (time’s money), I come to the point. It is about the borough of Lansmere. Your family interest is very strong in that borough; but excuse me if I say that I don’t think you are aware that I too have cooked up a pretty considerable interest on the other side. No offence,—opinions are free. And the popular tide runs strong with us—I mean with me—at the impending crisis,—that is, at the next election. Now, I have a great respect for the earl your father, and so have those who brought me into the world—my father, John, was always a regular good Blue,—and my respect for yourself since I came into this room has gone up in the market a very great rise indeed,—considerable. So I should just like to see if we could set our heads together, and settle the borough between us two, in a snug private way, as public men ought to do when they get together, nobody else by, and no necessity for that sort of humbug, which is so common in this rotten old country. Eh, my Lord?”
“Mr. Avenel,” said Harley, slowly, recovering himself from the abstraction with which he had listened to Dick’s earlier sentences, “I fear I do not quite understand you; but I have no other interest in the next election for the borough of Lansmere than as may serve one whom, whatever be your politics, you must acknowledge to be—”
“A humbug!”
“Mr. Avenel, you cannot mean the person I mean. I speak of one of the first statesmen of our time,—of Mr. Audley Egerton, of—”
“A stiff-necked, pompous—”
“My earliest and dearest friend.”
The rebuke, though gently said, sufficed to silence Dick for a moment; and when he spoke again, it was in an altered tone.
“I beg your pardon, my Lord, I am sure. Of course, I can say nothing disrespectful of your friend,—very sorry that he is your friend. In that case, I am almost afraid that nothing is to be done. But Mr. Audley Egerton has not a chance.